Symantec Partners with National Center for Women & Information Technology to Support Women in Tech

BOULDER, Colo.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT) and Symantec have announced the winners of the NCWIT Student Seed Fund, which provides university student groups with awards of $750 each to implement initiatives that recruit, retain, and support women in computing and technology disciplines. Following are the recipients of the NCWIT Student Seed Fund awards:

“Symantec recognizes diversity as a business advantage and values the contributions of technical women”

Ball State University, “Women Working in Technology”
Fort Valley State University, Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Student Chapter
Loyola University Maryland, Society of Women Engineers
Michigan State University Women in Computing
Ohio State University ACM Committee on Women (ACM-W)
Santa Clara University ACM-W Student Chapter
University of Delaware “CISters@UD”

Symantec sponsors the NCWIT Student Seed Fund, which to-date has distributed $25,500 in funding to 44 student-run programs at universities and colleges nationwide. The supported programs have provided outreach, mentoring, peer support, training, and professional development opportunities to more than 1,750 elementary, middle-school, high-school, undergraduate, and graduate students.

“Symantec recognizes diversity as a business advantage and values the contributions of technical women,” said Ellen McLatchey, Director of Global Diversity. “We’re pleased to support these student-run initiatives, which not only aim to recruit and retain women students in computing but strengthen the system for future women.”

Symantec will celebrate the Student Seed Fund Award-winners and their advisors at a luncheon coinciding with the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, which takes place October 3-6, 2012, in Baltimore, Maryland. Proposals for the next round of NCWIT Student Seed Fund awards will be accepted until October 15, 2012.

About NCWIT

The National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT) is a non-profit community of change leaders working to increase women’s participation in computing and technology. NCWIT helps organizations more effectively recruit, retain, and advance girls and women in K-12 through college education, and from academic to corporate and startup careers. NCWIT was established in 2004 with funding from the National Science Foundation and is supported by Microsoft, Bank of America, Avaya, Pfizer, Merck, Turner, AT&T, EMC, Google, Motorola, Qualcomm, Intel, HP, Symantec, and more than 300 university, corporate, non-profit, and government member organizations nationwide. Find out more at http://www.ncwit.org.

About Symantec

Symantec protects the world’s information, and is the global leader in security, backup and availability solutions. Our innovative products and services protect people and information in any environment – from the smallest mobile device, to the enterprise data center, to cloud-based systems. Our industry-leading expertise in protecting data, identities and interactions gives our customers confidence in a connected world. More information is available at www.symantec.com or by connecting with Symantec at: http://go.symantec.com/socialmedia.